


A Paired Dance

by theisleisfullofnoises



Series: Naruto Short Fics and Fusions [1]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - Avatar & Benders Setting, Avatar!Madara, Blind!Tobirama, Feel-good, Just kidding he's the best, M/M, Madara is perpetually Done, Tobirama is a terrible teacher
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-15
Updated: 2019-06-15
Packaged: 2020-05-12 11:24:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,802
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19228189
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theisleisfullofnoises/pseuds/theisleisfullofnoises
Summary: In which a frustrated Madara attempts to fulfill his destiny as the Avatar and free the world from his father’s tyrannical rule, and Tobirama really isn’t helping, right up until he is.A (mostly) quiet moment between.





	A Paired Dance

**Author's Note:**

> A world fusion with Avatar: The Last Airbender.
> 
> This was pretty much just me trying to scrub my brain after too many revisions of the same chapter, some desperate wishing that I had an air conditioner in my house, and tumblr.

“Wrong. Try again.”

 

When Madara had defied Fire Lord Tajima and freed the two captive sons of the Earth King to begin a globe-trotting journey in the hopes of overthrowing his father’s tyrannical rule over the Elemental Lands, he had been prepared to overcome many obstacles. Harrowing battles with familiar faces. Lean meals. Cold nights.

 

When, in the course of their escape, they had discovered that Madara was the _Avatar_ , destined to master all four elements and bring balance between the Spirit and the Human planes, his list of potential adversaries grew more exotic: malicious spirits, angry gods, creatures of legend and mystery.

 

He has already come face to face with many of those dangers, and likely would again before the inevitable confrontation with his father. Despite these experiences, however, he can conclude in this very moment that his true nemesis is no spirit, nor family member, nor even the occasional lack of anything he would remotely describe as ‘edible'.

 

No.

 

It’s this thrice-damned orb of water.

 

_wobble…wobble…splash!._

 

“Still wrong.”

 

Well. And Tobirama, of course.

 

Madara clenches his teeth down on his initial response to the pale-haired teen and takes a breath, re-centering himself. Shifting back to a neutral stance, he restarts the almost childishly simple kata he had managed to learn during their _very_ brief fly-by of the Northern Water Tribe, drawing up a thin stream of water from the river beside them. It collects into a gleaming ball, which he keeps centered and smooth above him as he works his way slowly through the forms.

 

Or, well, he tries to.

 

The globe of water suspended over his head wobbles and Madara swears, struggling to keep the form of the water and his kata together conjunctively and rapidly failing at both.

 

To his left, Tobirama _tsks_ , lids slipping shut over the brilliant scarlet of his unseeing eyes. “You’re trying too hard. You need to move _with_ the water. Let it lead you.”

 

Madara scowls. “' _Move with the water'"_ he parrots, "What does that even mean?”

 

“It means what I said,” says the younger Earth prince. “You have to let _it_ guide _you_. Feel for each turn; each step is like—“

 

Madara’s next pass goes too fast. The orb wobbles violently and, cursing, Madara scrambles to compensate, pushing out with his energy to try to stabilize it—

 

The orb detonates in a shower of hot water.

 

“..Not that,” Tobirama finishes unhelpfully.

 

Literally steaming, Madara rounds on his so-called waterbending master. “This is ridiculous,” he snarls, pointing accusingly. “You’re not teaching me, you’re just sitting around and _mocking_ me! We can’t all be freakish self-taught waterbending _geniuses_. It’s my contrary element.” He crosses his arms. “Maybe we should make another detour to the Northern Water Tribe?”

 

To Madara’s increased irritation, Tobirama just rolls his eyes. “Now you’re just being dramatic. You managed to master air already, and you seem to take the idea of relaxation like a threat upon your life unless Hashirama has managed to con you into being his drinking partner.” Madara takes a moment to shudder at that reminder. “There is no substantial reason water should be any more difficult for you to learn than air,” Tobirama continues. “And given how quickly you invented that ridiculous fan style,” he nods lazily to the large uchiwa lying on the river stones, “with the Fire Nation itself breathing down our necks, your best learning comes under adverse circumstances.”

 

Madara lets his unimpressed silence speak for him.

 

Tobirama sighs. “Fine.” Standing, he dusts off his pants with a few precise gestures. A few wisps of water vapor lift from the damp riverbank, swirling around his feet as the blind boy steps sure-footedly over the loose stones to stand next to Madara. “Pay attention. I don’t want to have to do this a hundred times.”

 

He slips into a stance, hands reaching out to coalesce streams of water straight from the air.

 

Even though there is a river six feet away. _Show off._

 

“Water has its own will, its own rhythm,” Tobirama begins, sliding straight into a kata. It is nothing like Madara’s simple Tribe form; no one else has ever learned this style, born from the mind and body of a waterbender raised in the Earth Kingdom with only himself for a teacher.

 

It happens to be, objectively speaking, one of the most beautiful styles Madara has ever seen. And as the former heir of the Fire Nation, he has seen some of the greatest duelists in the world.

 

Shame about the creator.

 

“You cannot force water, as you would earth,” Tobirama says, dropping back in a series of fluid evasions, “or channel it, like fire,” a serpentine strike to bend around a defense, “or release it, like air,” a whip of water lashes out once, twice, and then reforms to a globe, swirling around him as he dances around unseen opponents. “You must _feel_ water, listen to it, understand where it wishes to go, and understand that where the water wishes to go is where you must be.” With a final, flurried exchange, Tobirama leaps into the air. A wave forms around him, cresting in the air.

 

He lands with a concussive explosion of water that would have knocked back any foes within ten feet.

 

Then he stands, smoothing his shirt back into place and returning to his sightless contemplation of the river.

 

There is a long silence as Madara thinks that over.

 

“…I still have no idea what you are talking about.”

  
Tobirama lets out a sharp sigh, shoulders slumping.

 

“Don’t give me that!” Madara bristles. “You keep telling me I need to feel the water; I _am_ feeling it, it’s just not ‘ _talking_ ’ to me or whatever.”

 

Tobirama aims an impressive glare in Madara direction, as though _Madara_ is the one being difficult, and then releases out a disgusted sound. _“Enough._ You want teaching? I’ll show you teaching.”

 

He then stalks over to where Madara is standing and, while Madara values his pride as a warrior a great deal, he isn’t _that_ proud.

 

He backs away skittishly. “Uhhh, Tobirama—“

  
  
“Oh, stop running, I’m not going to hurt you.”

 

Cringing, Madara does stop, but is not prepared when Tobirama grabs him by the wrist and yanks him right into the other teen’s personal space. “Wha—!”

 

Tobirama settles himself at Madara’s back, pressed close from shoulders to ankles.

 

“…What is happening right now?” Madara asks with the hesitant air of a man being cuddled by a saber-toothed moose lion.

 

“ _Teaching,”_ Tobirama supplies viciously. _“_ Now shut up and close your eyes. Draw up another globe, and then feel as I move.” Baffled into obedience, Madara draws up another orb of water from the river— and almost loses it immediately as two hands slide down his arms to settle against the back of his own. “ _Focus._ ”

 

“ _Focus_ , he says, _just ignore all the unexpected touching_ , he says,” Madara grumbles, but obligingly closes his eyes. He nearly drops the orb again, but this time Tobirama’s hands go firm against his, moving with him in a quick but stunningly fluid curve of motion, and they catch the globe a hair away from touching the ground.

 

“Oh,” Madara says.

 

Tobirama hums, a soft, pleased sound that Madara can feel in both their chests, and something thrums in the mist around them.

 

“ _Oh_ ,” Madara says, again, only this time his tone is— different.

 

Tobirama shifts, pressing his foot against Madara’s instep until it lifts, stepping, and settles into the first stance.

 

And just like that, they begin the dance.

 

The kata is a familiar one — the same basic form from the Northern Water Tribe that Madara had been struggling through before, but with Tobirama behind the movements, it changes. Now it is something liquid and unpredictable, each simple strike and block taking on a flourish that is both beautiful and somehow _better,_ more efficient, more right. Madara can see it in his mind’s eyes— truly _see_ it, sensing the swirl of the morning mist around their hands and tracing their movements through the dew at their feet, even as the orb of water spreads and condenses in accordance to their movements.

 

Madara has never really been able to forget the extra inches that the damn stork of a waterbender has on him, but pressed close like this, they suddenly seem less awkward and more… fitting.

 

He gets caught up in the rhythm of it all, the ebb and flow and churn of the water at their hands, and even the wonder he feels is lost to the focus of motion and the warm thrum of a heartbeat pressed up close, only the barest distance from his own.

 

Eventually, the kata comes to a close.

 

For a moment after they stop, neither of them move.

 

“Is that what it’s like you for?” Madara asks quietly.

 

“When there is enough water to see by, yes,” Tobirama says. Then he pulls away, gently. “Time to open your eyes, Avatar.”

 

Madara does, though he knows in a sense what he will see.

 

A thousand droplets hang suspended in the air around them, swirling like constellations of twinkling stars. The orb of water is now a paper-thing dome, rippling over their heads and sending fragmented rainbows dancing over the stones and their skin. All of the world is distant, cut away by the shimmering curtain of water. “It’s beautiful,” he breathes, touching it and feeling the change sing in the water itself. “We made this?”

 

“ _You_ made it,” Tobirama counters, contrary as ever, but when Madara turns around to face him, he has a rare, soft smile spread across his face.

 

In that moment, Madara can only think that Tobirama’s smile is far more beautiful than their creation.

 

And then he realizes what he's just thought.

 

Oh.

 

_No_.

 

The former heir of the Fire Kingdom has only a breath to register his _complete regret of everything_ before he loses his focus on the water completely, and he spends the next few minutes sputtering and trying to pull the water of his impromptu shower from his clothes.

 

Tobirama, _miraculously_ dry and not even pretending to look sorry for him, starts laughing, the bastard.

 

~ ~ ~

 

Hearing the shouting by the riverbank pick up again, Hashirama sighs. “Well, it was nice to have them getting along while it lasted.” He stares glumly into the clay pot he was bending to cook their dinner in.

 

Mito, perched on the rise above the camp and therefore having a much clearer view of the riverbank, cocks her head thoughtfully as she takes in the lightness in Tobirama’s face and the red flush in Madara’s. “Oh, I don’t know,” she says, smirk growing as she let the breeze dance and sing around her _kanzashi_ like tinkling laughter. “I think they may learn to get along very well after all.”

 

**Author's Note:**

> I don't know if I will write any more in this one, but who knows! Life is full of mystery.
> 
>  
> 
> Note: For the purposes of this universe, some of the airbenders ended up settling down on an island of waterbenders and creating a population of crazy, ramen-loving Uzumaki. 
> 
> And no, Izuna does not go the way of Azula, but he doesn't get it easy either.


End file.
